The transfer portal blues? A.W. Hamilton refused to be beaten by star players’ exits

Once it became apparent that the NCAA was going to enact the “free one-time transfer rule,” a robust debate has been simmering in college basketball circles:

Will the teams in mid-major conferences, those leagues “down the food chain” from the power six (the football Power Five plus the Big East), be hurt more or helped more by the impending era of player mobility?

To get an opinion, I went to the one Kentucky college hoops coach who has had the wildest ride through the transfer portal in the current offseason.

Eastern Kentucky head man A.W. Hamilton had every right this spring to develop a loathing of the newly liberalized NCAA transfer rules.

The balls had barely stopped bouncing following EKU’s feel-good, 22-7 men’s basketball season in 2020-21 when the Colonels coach saw his two best players exit via the transfer portal.

Senior-to-be power forward Tre King (14.9 points, 6.2 rebounds for Eastern in 2020-21) will be playing in the coming season for Patrick Ewing and the Georgetown Hoyas.

Meanwhile, off a boffo freshman year at the controls of Hamilton’s frenetic attack, point guard Wendell Green (15.8 points, 3.4 rebounds, 5.0 assists) has joined forces with Bruce Pearl at Auburn.

“Tre King was one of my first recruits that we got here. In three years, he turned into a first-team, all-league player,” Hamilton says. “Wendell Green, he comes in and has one of the best seasons a freshman had had in EKU history.”

For a coach, losing such program staples packs an emotional wallop.

“I love all my guys. I wish them the best,” Hamilton says. “But, personally, behind the scenes, I cried like a baby when they left.”

Yet, faced with portal adversity, Hamilton demonstrated the kind of adaptability and persistence coaches are going to have to muster in the bold, new era of college basketball transferring.

The EKU head man went to work himself in the portal.

To fill the void left by King, Hamilton brought in a pair of 6-foot-9 transfers from Marshall.

In four seasons with the Thundering Herd, Jannson Williams (9.4 points, 4.3 rebounds, 2.0 blocks in 2020-21) broke the all-time Marshall career blocked shot record (196) previously held by Hassan Whiteside (182).

Burly Iran Bennett, a 335-pounder, missed all but one game last season for Marshall due to injury but averaged 9.1 points and 5.3 rebounds for the Herd in 2019-20.

To replace Green at the point, Hamilton brought in veteran North Carolina State guard Braxton Beverly. The 6-foot Beverly, once a high school star at Perry County Central, leaves N.C. State as the second player in school history to exceed 1,000 points (1,012), 300 assists (307), 200 made three-point shots (218) and 100 steals (108) in a career.

EKU also added 5-11 Wichita State transfer Trevin Wade (2.1 points per game last season), a player Hamilton and the Colonels had previously recruited out of Georgia Highlands, a junior college.

“We love, absolutely love, the guys we got,” Hamilton says. “We’re excited about the experience we bring in with those guys. When you look at Iran, Braxton and Jannson, those guys have played a lot of college basketball. They’ve played in a lot of big games.”

In the transfer-rules debate, one school of thought is that the college hoops big boys are going to use the teams from less prominent conferences as a feeder system and consistently “poach” the best players.

“I think (poaching will) probably be the same as it always has been,” Hamilton says. “I don’t really much worry about that. We can just control what we can control.”

Even if poaching becomes more widespread, another theory is that the mid-major schools will nevertheless ultimately be the net winner.

The idea being that, once you combine players “transferring down” from the power six looking for more playing time with mid-major transfers making lateral moves, there will be far more players available in the portal who can help an Eastern Kentucky or a Morehead State than a Kentucky or a Louisville.

Hamilton points to his own experience as a college player, when he signed with Wake Forest but transferred to Marshall seeking more playing time to explain why “I buy a little bit” the theory that liberalized transfer rules will ultimately help college basketball’s mid-majors more than hurt.

What we already know for certain is that, in the era of player empowerment created by the portal and the one free transfer rule, college coaches face a complex balancing act:

How do coaches weigh the need to “re-recruit” their rosters to try to keep players from leaving with the reality of still having to push players to be their competitive best?

“You do re-recruit your guys, but I still have to coach them,” Hamilton says. “I have to hold them accountable. I still have to help them get better, on and off the floor.”

Keep playing EKU or not? For Morehead St. and Murray St., that is now the question.

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